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LOOKING AT THE EVENTS OF SUMMERSLAM AND THE FALLOUT LAST NIGHT ON RAW

I would like to start by apologizing for not finishing the Summerslam In A Nutshell series before Sunday, but I was really sick all weekend and was pretty much non-functional until yesterday morning. But I started it and I'm gonna finish it, so if anybody wants to catch up on the last ten years of Summerslam leading into this year's show, I promise it’ll be up tomorrow.

But also because I was sick, I didn't stay up to watch Summerslam and put it off until last night so I could watch the PPV and then Raw back to back. I avoided looking at anything wrestling-related until I saw both shows so that I could watch and write about them without any preconceived notions based on other peoples’ opinions, and in retrospect that seems like a smart move since I'm sure the finish to the Summerslam main event and the fallout on Raw elicited a lot of spirited discussion.

Let's start with Summerslam which, except for two matches, made for a largely missable show in my opinion. It’s not that the show was necessarily bad per se, because there was a lot of great wrestling, but nothing from a storyline sense really seemed to matter other than the WWE and World Title matches. You’d think that their attempts to build Summerslam as the Wrestlemania of the summer would mean a true start to finish supercard, but they didn't even announce a full card going in, so even when you add a six man featuring mostly main event level guys, it comes off more like an afterthought because they wanted to get the guys on the show, not like a big deal because there were six big stars in there. In other words, they gave us no reason to care.

Sheamus vs Mark Henry was awesome as expected, and I definitely noticed the way the crowd went nuts for Sheamus when he beat Henry down to his knees. It was fine all the way up to the finish because, even though I was of the opinion that this should end in some kind of non-finish, I thought that non-finish should have had Sheamus winning since I felt like him losing, even by countout, made it look like he couldn't get the job done. On the other hand, Sheamus winning by countout would have given it the juice of someone finally getting over on Henry, even on a technicality, and would have given Henry a reason to become even more pissed and dangerous and, therefore, interesting. But I guess that at the end of the day, I'm happy as long as these two fight again since this was a lot of fun to watch.

I didn't feel good about the outcome of Daniel Bryan vs Wade Barrett because, even though I certainly didn't think Bryan should go undefeated between now and Wrestlemania, I thought he should have gone over because he just lost by submission to Del Rio recently and could have used the win to get back on track. Also, Barrett isn't really doing much of anything right now, so there's no reason he had to beat Bryan.

Kelly and Beth was there and told one of the two stories you always get with matches like this: either the overpowering beast destroys and beats the underdog, or the beast destroys the underdog before getting caught by a fluke rollup. Nothing to write home about here.

Orton and Christian had a predictible outcome, but this was easily the best match in their series. They destroyed each other out there, and it was so well booked that there were a few spots where I honestly thought Christian was going to beat him clean, especially given his pseudo-pep talk from Edge before the match. I thought the finsh was innovative, and also enjoyed Edge's surprise appearance and promo with Christian, and now that the belt is back where we all knew it'd end up, hopefully we can move on past this feud and let it end on a high note.

This brings us to the main event, which once again was awesome, and I was even fine with the finish up until Nash showed up. They needed to have a controversial finish, and "referee didn't see Cena's foot on the rope" works a lot better for me than "crooked ref screws Punk" or "a million people run in and attack somebody." Unintentional screwing is fine because intentional screwing has been done to death.

I liked how Cena worked his ass off, and I honestly didn't realize he knew that many moves. He really impressed me with the way he worked in the ring and did more than the usual, and between that and the promos he cut leading into the show, it really makes you respect him as a deeper talent than he usually gets credit for. He’s had other good matches and programs over the years, but the CM Punk feud has brought a totally new side out of John Cena, and I’m enjoying watching him more over the last two months than I probably ever have before.

Then Nash showed up and attacked Punk so Alberto could come cash in and win the title. My first thought was that since Alberto was originally supposed to be in the Summerslam title match, this must be their way of circumventing the Punk angle and getting back to plan A. But, since they had done such a good job of booking the storylines for the better part of two months leading into this show, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until I saw the fallout on Raw.

So now we come to last night, and everything we knew going into Summerslam has been sent into completely new storyline directions. For starters, Punk is apparently out of the title picture completely, as Alberto beat Rey Mysterio and then was confronted by Cena, who cut another strong promo on Alberto and called him a paper champion. I’m okay with Cena being in the title hunt right now as long as it's to put Del Rio over because, as many have said, Cena really doesn’t need the title going into Wrestlemania. I'm hoping this will lead to Cena challenging Del Rio at Survivor Series and Rock getting involved to reignite the build to their match at Wrestlemania.

I'm really not all that broken up over Alberto beating Rey clean in his hometown because it's Rey and, with all due respect to his considerable talents, I want him as far from the title picture as possible. I thought they might have done another screwy finish so you now had four guys who had a legit gripe over not being the champion, but I'm just as happy not having Rey as part of that scene at all.

Getting back to Punk, I would guess most of the people who have a problem with the way he's been booked over the last few days aren't happy that Kevin Nash is involved, and I wouldn't argue that point because I agree that diverting the super hot Punk into a feud with a 50-something Kevin Nash, who hasn’t meant anything in the world of WWE in nearly a decade and is almost a complete unknown to the current fanbase, isn't what I would have done. I think the promos leading into the eventual match will be entertaining as hell, but I'll be just as happy once they move past that feud and Punk's on to someone else.

But if you take Nash out of the equation, the “Punk vs The Machine” storyline has taken an interesting new twist where, instead of the same hackneyed storyline with the evil boss holding down the rebel that has been rehashed ad nauseum since 1997, now you have the guy in power (Triple H) actually trying to do things the right way and not let Punk’s mouth get to him, but he’s got manipulators (Stephanie and John Laurinaitis) going behind his back to screw Punk and put the heat on Hunter.

It’s looking like the story is going to take the real life fear of internet fans (Punk’s going to get resigned and then they’ll just bury him again now that they have him under lock and key) and make that the actual storyline. I think doing that makes a lot of sense, because the best storylines are ones that have an element of reality to it, and there’s obviously a very large group of CM Punk fans out there who are solidly behind him because he’s finally getting the shot, and are raging against the machine by booing Cena and everyone else who opposes their hero.

Along the same lines is the introduction of John Laurinaitis as a TV character. I’m sure there are plenty of people who think it’s a stupid idea, but I think it makes sense because, in much the same way that the longtime fans going back to the territories hated Vince McMahon for killing the business long before he became a heel character on TV, there’s been a lot of people who have hated Laurinaitis for the behind the scenes moves he’s made for years now. To fans who know who he is, and also appreciated the skateboard jokes, he’s a ready made heat magnet.

The other thing (and this is what sets it apart from the TNA “we all know who he is!” storylines) is that they’re actually explaining who Laurinaitis is instead of just assuming we already know. They’ve spent weeks describing how he’s been Vince’s hatchet man, framing him as this domineering backstage figure with a “my way or the highway” attitude, and even naming people he’s fired over the phone instead of doing it to their faces.

They’ve done a very good job of building the John Laurinaitis character, and I think that if they still plan on paying off the Anonymous Raw GM character by revealing an actual person, Laurinaitis would be a good person to fit the bill because a)it would finally end that entire stupid angle, b)it would make sense since Vince would undoubtedly trust Laurinaitis enough to put him in charge without explicitly wanting to reveal his identity due to his other role, c)it would add to the cowardly manipulator character he’s now portraying on TV, and d)it would give him an entire year’s worth of history right out of the gate in addition to just what we’ve seen on TV over the last month.

So at the end of the day, are all the moves they’re making the ones I would make? Definitely not, but the one thing I can say is that I’m 100% interested in seeing where it all goes and what’s going to happen over the coming weeks. I haven’t been this excited over the WWE product in years, and I’m happy they’re finally giving me a show I want to watch.

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